


Blame

by DivineVarod



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Childhood Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Repressed Memories, The Last Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 21:17:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8594137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DivineVarod/pseuds/DivineVarod
Summary: "He was to blame! Over the years he'd grown certain of it."A childhood trauma won't let Rimmer go.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lala_Sara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lala_Sara/gifts).



> Thanks to Darkchrisbarrieblood for Beta reading

_“Anyway, middle of the night, I wake up with this tongue stuck down my throat. Wide awake now -- I couldn't believe my eyes. It was Uncle Frank!  
_ _He'd got the wrong room -- he thought I was my mum!”_

* * *

That was how he had rationalized it, that was what had happened. He tried treating it lightly, as a joke, if he spoke about it at all, which didn't happen often – usually only when he was drunk.  
  
He tried repressing it and when that didn't work he tried to make it into a silly event, an amusing anecdote. But every so often it would return as something that took him by the throat and choke him. Something that made him desperate for someone who would understand, or maybe just listen and help him, hold him when he felt alone, scared.  
  
Non of the posse did when Rimmer blurted it out at that party. Well how could they? They were all blind drunk – they just laughed. It confirmed it to him: it was a stupid event, it had meant nothing.  
  
But still, somehow, a part of him had hoped that Lister, sweet sensitive Lister, would reach out and talk to him. But no, he was too busy looking after Kryten that day. He understood. The moment passed and he'd gone back to repressing it along with all the other pain he'd suffered in his childhood.

A childhood full of confusing sexual messages: an extremely religious puritan upbringing, yet his mother was promiscuous. Homophobic parents and teachers that dealt out corporal punishment when you appeared “feminine”. Then that “event” happened and no-one cared. This, to him, could only mean one thing: it was all his fault.

_He was to blame!_ Over the years he'd grown certain of it: He was too feminine, his father had always said so. That was why he was always singled out, punished, beaten, picked on; he was too wet. And that was why it had happened: he had been too weak, he didn't even struggle … _He had deserved it.  
  
_ He was weak for still waking up caked with sweat remembering that tongue in his throat, that hand underneath his shirt and … lower. That big body crushing his thin malnourished form. That big puffy face that hovered above him when he opened his eyes!! _No, repress!!_ Nothing had happened, it had been a mistake.

He was weak to still shiver when the image would suddenly re-appear in front of him out of nowhere. Nothing had happened! Nothing! Whatever happened, it was his fault.

* * *

He was strong! Lister said as he held him after he had finally broken down and told him the truth about what had happened. He was not to blame: he was only a child. What had happened was wrong.  
  
He was not to blame, it wasn't his fault: _he was the victim._


End file.
